Country Village Rentals and Real Estate Weblog

By Brian-Logan Reid, Broker

An interesting thing happened over the last several days…several people, including myself, have noticed that the infamous “August people”* may have come early.  While the fourth of July always tends to bring in the well-heeled, it looks like they are here a bit earlier than last year.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many Range Rovers in my time on Nantucket! 

Herb Gallen’s (of Ellen Tracy fame) large (164′) and incredibly beautiful Mystique yacht was docked in prestigious Nantucket harbor over the last week, pretty much by herself, but that is soon to change as the jet set start pulling in their super yachts in the next few weeks…

I look forward to it!

 * “August people” generally consist of the wealthiest residents and vacationers that frequent Nantucket.  They own the largest houses, the newest vehicles, the largest yachts and if they don’t come in by private boat, they have either the largest or fastest yets (either privately owned, or chartered).  This is a broad generalization, but sometimes it’s fun to make general observations!

By Brian-Logan Reid, Broker

The renovation of the historic Point Breeze Hotel will not be returned to a hotel as previously thought, but will essentially be converted into a condo-hotel.  There will be 32 private one to two bedroom suites as well as six on-site cottages that will sell for $1 to $3 million.  According to a press release, Palm Beach developer Robert “Bob” Matthews notes the need for such a place on Nantucket.  “On an island where private clubs enjoy considerable cachet and the demand for private homes far exceeds supply, Point Breeze is destined to become Nantucket’s most celebrated address…For a select few, this will be a rare opportunity to enjoy the island’s ultimate luxury retreat.”

The Point Breeze will still operate as a hotel where people can stay and dine at the restaurant, but the rooms will be owned individually and the luxury amenities - world class spa and salon, fitness center, swimming pool, tennis, wine tasting bar, cigar bar, full service concierge, and underground parking - will be enjoyed by the condo owners and members of the club. 

As part of a five hotel/resort project planned by Bob Matthews, the other locations that are being developed besides Nantucket include Aspen, CO, Stowe, VT, Palm Beach, FL, and a 600-acre island in the Bahamas and club members will have reciprical access to the other resort locations’s amenities once the project is fully developed.

For more information, check out The Point Breeze website, or the Nantucket Independent article

By Brian-Logan Reid, Broker

I was in the Grand Union grocery store yesterday and saw Daphne Zuniga (remember Spaceballs!?), which got me thinking about all the VIP’s that own property or frequent Nantucket.  So I thought it would be interesting to compile an unofficial list of the folks that I know that own “houses” or have visited the ‘grey lady’:

Current or previous owner’s of Nantucket real estate:

Eric Schmidt - CEO - Google
Tommy Hilfiger - owner - Tommy Hilfiger Inc.
Jack Welch - former chairman/CEO - GE
Louis Gertsner - former chairman/CEO - IBM
John Kerry/Teresa Heinz - Senator/Heinz Corp. heir
Bob Wright - CEO - NBC Universal
Roger Penske - owner - Penske Corporation/Penske Racing
Michael Kittredge - owner - Yankee Candle
Arie (Coco) Kopleman - president - Chanel
Bill Belicheck - head coach - New England Patriots
Abigal Johnson - Fidelity Investments heir
Lee Iaoccoa – formerly of Chylser Corp.
Michael Egan - former chairman - Alamo Rent-A-Car
Kathy Lee Gifford - celebrity
Jerry & Ben Stiller - actors
Tim Russert - host - Meet the Press
Chris Matthews - host - Hardball
Paul Soros - businessman (brother of George Soros)

Others that have been to or frequent Nantucket:

Bill Clinton - former President
Laura Bush - current First Lady
Bill Gates - chairman - Microsoft
Warren Buffett - Berkshire Hathaway
Jim Carrey - actor
Sharon Stone - actress
Heather Graham - actress
Mike Tyson - boxer
Paul Giamatti - actor
Brian Williams – host – Nightly News
Katie Courac – host – CBS Evening News
Dr. Bob Arnot - chief medical correspondent - NBC
Herb Chambers - owner Herb Chambers (and his 197’ yacht Excellence III)
Jimmy Buffett - musician

These are just the ones that I know…there are probably many others…

Source:  http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/regionalnews/
20070517-frank.html?mod=RSS_Real_Estate_Journal&rejrss=frontpage

By Robert Frank

With summer around the corner, Nantucket is expecting its annual crush of crowds, traffic and outsized wealth. But this year, the Massachusetts island is also bracing for a showdown between fishermen and rich part-time residents that has escalated into a class war.

At the center of the dispute is a small patch of beach on the southeast corner of the island known as Siasconset, or Sconset for short. Some of Nantucket’s wealthiest residents — including cable-TV billionaire Amos Hostetter Jr., businessman Paul Soros (brother of George) and commodities trader Helmut Weymar — have stately summer homes on a bluff overlooking the beach. But with erosion eating away at the shore, some of the houses are in danger of falling into the ocean.To solve the problem, Mr. Hostetter, Mr. Weymar and others have pooled $23 million of their own money to rebuild the beach. Yet local fishermen are fighting the project, saying it will ruin one of their prime fishing spots. They say the beach should be left alone, and that nature should trump money.

“These people have enough money to move their houses or buy another one,” says Josh Eldridge, a lifelong Nantucketer who owns a charter fishing business. “If I lose my fishing business, I lose my house and it’s my only house. Unlike these other people, I don’t have a ski chalet in Aspen or a place in Palm Beach.”

Indeed, what started as a dispute over striped-bass habitats has unleashed broader resentments. Locals have watched their island transformed in recent decades from a low-key, historic summer retreat to a playground for the super-rich. The median home price was $1.8 million last year, according to Realtors, while some houses and properties have recently sold for more than $15 million. Megamansions have been replacing many of the gray-shingled cottages that once defined the 50-square-mile island. Mr. Eldridge says he was saddened recently to see two high-school classmates get on the ferry to leave the island for good, since they no longer could afford to live there. (more…)

By:  Brian-Logan Reid, Broker

I went to an open forum meeting last night regarding a proposition from the Health Inspector who wants to levy an annual fee ($100) to all home owners who rent their properties out for longer than 31 days. 

As Nantucket is mainly a seasonal area, and whereby most homeowners who rent their property out, this would have a very broad and far-reaching effect for not only the owners but also many thousands of tenants. 

I cannot even begin to put into words how hard it is for tenants to find housing for the season (May to October) or for the summer (June, July and August)…let’s just say it is very difficult.

Here are the main issues from the Health Inspector’s side:

• The Health Inspector has seen ‘deplorable’ conditions that would ‘make the hair on the back of your neck stand up’.  Conditions such as tenants sleeping with their feet against furnaces, tenants living in basements with dirt floors, tenants living in basements without access to kitchens, tenants “doing their business” in bushes, etc.
• The H.I. wants to levy this fee so that he can increase the size of his department and try and rectify these ’sub standard’ living conditions
• “All it is going to take is for one catastrophe for this issue to come more to light”

I will try to outline the myriad issues from the tenant’s, the landlord’s, and the real estate agent’s side:

• The already very tight inventory of ‘affordable’ properties on Nantucket is hard enough to find and fill - this measure would only DECREASE the amount of housing
• Tenants that are living in these sub standard housing units cannot afford anything else and, as a result, will not report their landlords to the H.I. because they have no other place to go
• Landlords that rent out some of their houses (e.g. renting rooms out for the summer) in order to cover their mortgages would suffer financially if this income goes away
• Landlords would be responsible for rectifying the rental units and this additional financial burden may not be able to be paid for
• If the landlord does rectify the situation, the more than likely result would be an increase in rent, thereby making it even further unaffordable for tenants
• From my (real estate agent’s) perspective, this would provide a DISincentive for investors to purchase rental properties that are not 100% compliant with MA sanitary laws (someone said that 99% of all properties would not pass a rigorous inspection)
• It is understood, but not spoken of, that the majority of the people living in these sub standard rental units are minorities that are here working their tails off and keeping the service industry running…what happens to the local economy if they leave (as a result of being unable to find affordable housing)?
• Assuming for just one minute that this program moves forward, could one even begin to imagine the logistical and practical matter of actually trying to get all of these owners to register their properties?  The H.I. himself believes that it would take in the area of 5 YEARS to register the properties!

There are so many other issues that I just do not have the time to type about, but here’s the basic premise.  It is the H.I.’s job to try and keep the public’s health as safe as possible.  Understood.  But this approach does not seem to be the answer and only would excerbate the dire housing situation. 

I’ve heard that this sort of rental housing certification program exists in other parts of the country and I would love to hear how it works.  Â

Source:  Inquirer & Mirror

The Great Harbor Yacht Club has announced plans to buy the Nantucket Tennis and Swim Club off Nobadeer Farm Road by May 15 from the club’s founders and owners, John and Carol Luyrink and Gary and Paula D’Ambra….

Once under the GHYC umbrella, the Nantucket Tennis and Swim Club will still allow public use of its courts for an hourly rate, although that rate has not yet been set for the upcoming season, said GHYC project manager Tim Shea.

The Luyrinks and D’Ambras purchase the Nobadeer Farm Road property in 1999 from the Nantucket Island Land Bank with the provision the club allow the public to use the courts on an hourly basis and to provide at least 30 memberships to year-round residents…

Located on 3.25 acres at 23 Nobadeer Farm Road, the Nantucket Tennis and Swim Club, which opened in 2002, is the first on the island to feature clay courts.  Although there are no concrete plans to change anything at the club this season, Great Harbor Yacht Club developers are planning to remove one of the nine courts and to add a squash court as well as increase the size of the heated swimming pool, confirmed Shea…

For the full story, see the Inquirer & Mirror soon (full article not currently available)

Source:  Inquirer & Mirror

Despite the cooling island real estate market, property values have continued to rise, leading to a drop in Nantucket’s tax rate for the current fiscal year…

…beginning July 1, 2007, (the property tax rate) will be $2.49 per $1,000 of assessed value…

The islands total property valuation is currently $20.38 billion, making Nantucket the fourth most valuable community in Massachusetts behind only Boston, Cambridge and Newton…

The residential tax rate was $2.84 last year, and has consistently decreased for several years. 

“Values go up so the rate must go down, ” Dilworth (Town Assessor) said, referring to Proposition 2 1/2, the state law that restricts the amount of tax revenue that can be collected in a given year. 

For the 1,991 island homeowners who have registered for the residential exemption, the average year-round tax bill will be $2,569. 

In 2006, the average Massachusetts tax bill was $3,801, Dilworth said, and the average tax rate was $10.73 per $1,000 of assessed value. 

In 2006, Nantucket had the third-lowest tax rate in Massachusetts behind Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard and Gosnold in the Elizabeth Islands, according to the assessor’s office…

For the full story, see the Inquirer & Mirror soon (full article not currently available)

I just spoke with a good client of mine who rented a relatively high end ($10,000/wk) house from me for the last two years (he’s not coming this year due to his new baby!!).  Anyway, he works at a large bank in New York City and I wanted to know what he and others in the financial industry that received sizable bonuses this year have done or are doing with this capital.  According to him, some folks are sending some of the money back into the markets; others have purchased flashy cars and jets (!); others are purchasing high-end rentals and real estate in places like Nantucket and the Hamptons. 

I will be interested to see what happens with our real estate market this coming spring.  With the announcement that JetBlue and Delta will be flying between Nantucket and NYC, along with a new fast ferry from NYC to Nantucket (or is this a rumor???), we could see a surge in rentals and home buying from people from the city.  I’ve often heard how difficult is has been to travel from ‘the’ city to Nantucket; this obviously will make it easier, but to what extent??

After resting all winter long, Nantucket comes alive with color with the first major event of the season…Daffodil Weekend (April 27 to April 29, 2007)!  From mid-April through May, over 3 million daffodils bloom all over our lovely island and we can finally proclaim “Spring is here!!” (though spring normally lasts about 3 weeks.  The main attraction is the Annual Antique Car Parade, where gorgeous old cars are flowered up and travel up Main Street and continue out to Sconset for the Tailgate Picnic.  For more information on this wonderful event, take a look at the Chamber of Commerce’s site…of course if you need accommodations, give us a ring!